Gary Brooks Faulkner: Will It Take a Vigilante to Get Osama Bin Laden?

Gary Brooks Faulkner, a 52-year-old construction worker from California, was detained Sunday by Pakistani authorities after being found with a gun, sword and night-vision goggles. Faulkner claims he was on a mission to kill Osama bin Laden. But while that my cause a few chuckles (including from the Pakistanis who detained him), the real joke is not on a would-be Rambo like Faulkner but on the U.S. government, which has yet to capture or kill bin Laden as we approach the nine-year anniversary of 9/11.

After those attacks, the Bush administration allowed bin Laden to sneak out from Afghanistan into Pakistan by holding back American troops from the assault on Tora Bora. Last year a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation found that "a larger troop commitment to Afghanistan might have resulted in the demise not only of Mr. bin Laden and his deputy but also of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban," reported The New York Times. "Like several previous accounts, the committee's report blames Gen. Tommy R. Franks, then the top American commander, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, for not putting a large number of American troops there lest they fuel resentment among Afghans."

On the campaign trail, Barack Obamaattacked President Bush's record regarding this lapse, but since assuming the presidency Obama, too, has failed to deliver bin Laden. As quixotic as Faulkner's attempt was, at least he, unlike the U.S. government, gave the appearance of trying.

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